The musical soundtrack pantheon of our moviegoing lifetimes
must include another composer named John besides that of Williams: the great
John Barry (1933-2011), who would have turned 82 today. Across 12 James Bond
films (with Barry’s unmistakable arrangement of Monty Norman’s deathless 007
theme debuting in Dr. No and continuing
ever after); journeys through the
Dark Continent (Zulu, Out of Africa),
the American West (Dances with Wolves) and
outer space (The Black Hole); dark
detours into neo-noir (Body Heat, Jagged
Edge) and Hollywood’s underbelly (The
Day of the Locust); historical pageantry and romance (The Lion in Winter, Mary Queen of Scots, Robin and Marian,Somewhere in Time); and even one’s own
off-the-radar personal favorites (mine: They
Might Be Giants, yours: fill in the blank), his melodies endure. Stepping
outside the Bond realm in the mid-1960s, there is another great achievement: Barry’s
inspired Academy Award®-winning Best Original Score and Best Song (lyrics by
Don Black) for Born Free (1966), the beautifully crafted true story of Elsa
the Lioness, based on Joy Adamson’s global best-seller and directed on location
in Africa by James Hill. Playful, soulful and bountiful with emotion, Barry’s
melodies provide the warmly inviting blanket for the tale of naturalists Joy
and George Adamson (then-married couple Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers) and
their dedicated and perilous struggle to rehabilitate the orphaned and home-raised
lion cub Elsa and reintroduce her the wild with the skills she needs to
survive. The film was an instant audience and critical favorite. “Almost from the opening shot—a vast expanse
of corn-colored African plain where lions feed on the carcass of a freshly
killed zebra—one knows that Joy Adamson's best-selling book Born
Free has been entrusted to honest, intelligent filmmakers, Vincent
Canby wrote in The New York Times. “Without
minimizing the facts of animal life or overly sentimentalizing them, this film
casts an enchantment that is just about irresistible.”
In the years afterward, McKenna and Travers became wildlife conservation activists
and the movie itself endures as a magical and persuasive argument for the
preservation of the natural environment. On the cusp of its 50th anniversary, Born
Free has undergone a new Sony Pictures 4K restoration and its
gorgeously photographed (by Kenneth Talbot) visual splendor will be showcased
on Twilight Time’s new hi-def Blu-ray, coming home for the holidays. Barry’s
ravishing score will be showcased on an Isolated Track, and the roaring-good Audio
Commentary by movie music authority Jon Burlingame and TT’s own Julie Kirgo and
Nick Redman explores the glories of maestro Barry as well as the film. Born
Free arrives December 8; pre-orders open on November 20.

Another lion of cinema celebrates a birthday today: Charles
Bronson (1921-2003). The born-to-be-badass star of currently available Twilight
Time hi-def Blu-rays The Mechanic and 10 to
Midnight (as well as the sold-out Hard Times) will play a role in TT’s
2016 release schedule and like Elsa, he occasionally must channel his wild side
on screen as well. Watch for news of more long-awaited Bronson movies in the
coming months.